The Old Empire has
crumbled. Strong factions prey on the weak, and strongest of all are those who
ally themselves with the mysterious Robotics Faction…

Cressida Sarit Antiata
is twelve years old when her diplomat parents learn that her name has appeared
on the Robotics Faction Kill List, a classified document of dangerous
individuals marked for execution. Calling in all of their connections, her
parents smuggle her to a small but wealthy ore-producing moon where she grows
up in anonymous luxury, secure that her data is safe.

Until now.

Xan | Arch is an x-class
android with one mission: execute the target n81, also known as Cressida Sarit
Antiata. Although he possesses biological skin, hair, fingernails, and eyes –
and extensive conditioning to pass as a sweating, swearing, rough-and-tumble
everyman - beneath the surface, he is all machine.

When he arrives at the
moon, something unexpected is waiting for him. Something that circumvents his
execution order and forces him to protect Cressida instead. Something that
gives him the free will to question his makers, control his destiny, and awaken
his heart.

Together, they might
escape their destinies and forge an entirely new future.

Her name is Silence. If she was ever
known by any other name, she doesn’t remember.

She is a killer. If she was ever
anything else, she doesn’t remember.

She has an owner. If she was ever
free…well, that she does remember. She was free and then somebody gave
her to a madman to pay a debt that wasn’t hers. She’s his toy, his pet…and his
trained killer. She kills at his whim or she dies.

She has a target. Her so-called owner…the
man who makes her life a living hell. If she could kill anybody in the
universe, it would be him. But he holds her life in his hands.

And she has a wish—to find a man she
barely remembers. A man she knows she once loved. The man who betrayed her and
stole away her freedom.

With one final target between her
and the tantalizing promise of freedom, she moves in for the kill. There’s one
problem. There’s something strangely familiar about her mark. Something that
echoes in the void where love used to live.

Product Warnings

One woman with a mission, one evil
bastard who lies as often as he breathes, and a man who’ll stop at nothing to
find what he lost. Be warned…some questionable consent lies within.

Shuttle pilot Cory Olsen figures
he'll live fast and die young. After all, his is one of the most dangerous jobs
on the Earth Ship Siren. Out among the stars, on the long journey to the
penal colony on Solitaire, Cory parties hard, laughing and loving, no
commitments, nothing serious.

Which would be fine if he could
ignore Bella – Prisoner 2844 – and move on to the next pretty face. He can't
work out where he's going wrong. The woman's all lush temptation – skin like
velvet, mouth like honeysuckle – but Bella's crankier than his temperamental
shuttle craft and twice as mean.

Since Bella's doing seven years for
sedition, she can't afford entanglements of any kind, not with her old
associates – and especially not with a handsome, reckless flyboy who makes her
laugh at all the wrong moments. With tension on the Siren reaching fever
pitch, a ruthless leader emerges from among the convicts. When violence starts
to escalate, rebellion seems inevitable.

If Bella's not careful, she could
lose a lot more than her wary heart. She could cost Cory Olsen his life.

If stealing from the rich to give to
the poor is a crime, then Silo Warrick is a felon of the highest order.

A gifted horticulturist found guilty
of stealing from the elite greenhouses, Silo is also an extraordinary musician,
and therefore the perfect con to throw onboard the Earth Ship Siren.
Though he's promised a fresh start on Solitaire, Silo's not about to believe
his captors.

But his disgust of the elite is
about to be challenged by highbrow lovers Cloey Pederson and Jasmine Hewitt.
They aren't the arrogant and superior snobs Silo has learned to hate, even
though trusting them is a whole ballpark out of his league.

One woman might whet Silo's carnal
appetite; two is cause for all his wet dreams to come true. But are Cloey and
Jasmine double the trouble or twice as nice?

Micah Stone sees Solitaire as a fresh start. With
twenty years’ experience in the agriculture industry, he hopes the colony won’t
make the same mistakes that were made on Earth.

To most
people, Micah looks like a member of the well educated elite, but he’s really a
Gaia activist. Not only did he lie about his daughter’s age to get her on
board, but his partner is one of the most dangerous women on Siren.

Felicity
Valez was once an Army explosives expert, and she was also a member of the
radical Gaia Movement. After being sentenced to life for sedition, she wound up
on Siren. To protect her partner and daughter while they’re on board, she needs
to make sure that no one links the family together.

But her
liaisons with Micah have been noted. And when her daughter’s life is threatened
Felicity will do the one thing she promised Micah she’d never do again: rig an
explosive that will kill.

As part of Hell Squad, former Coalition Navy SEAL Reed MacKinnon fights for
humanity's freedom from the alien invaders. He also fights for his brown-eyed
girl--the woman he rescued from the aliens' secret laboratory. He admires her
quiet strength and will to survive, not to mention her elfin looks and curvy
body...but he knows he has to keep his distance. She's nowhere near ready for
what he has to offer and he'll protect her from everything, even his own
powerful desires.

Energy
scientist Natalya Vasin has lived through hell. Still struggling after her
captivity, scarred by the aliens' experimentation, all she wants is to be
normal again...and she wants Reed MacKinnon. But the rugged soldier is holding
back, treating her like glass, and she won't accept that from anybody.

As Reed and Natalya wage a sensual
battle of desires, they also work together to decipher a mysterious alien
energy cube. Hell Squad need Natalya's expertise and they need her to go back
into alien territory to use it. But on a mission to destroy an alien outpost,
secrets are uncovered--of what the raptors really did to Natalya. Secrets that
mean the future she wants with Reed is just an impossible dream.

Note to readers: This sci fi romance contains a lot
of action (think invading aliens, explosions and gunfights), tough warriors (the
sexy, battle-hardened soldiers of Hell Squad) and a steamy romance (lots of
sexy times between a tough Navy SEAL and a smart scientist). So if you like it
fast, and gritty, and sexy, this is for you!

Mining Engineer Cole
Hudson signed up for NASA astronaut training, but after washing out short of
getting his gold wings, he retreats to Alaska where he stakes out a gold claim.
When billionaire entrepreneur Duncan Janson offers him an opportunity to join a
mining team on an asteroid, Cole jumps at the chance.

But nothing is as it
seems. Former NASA reject and rival classmate, Tessa Hernandez, is also a member
of the team, and from the beginning of the mission test flight, things go
wrong. They soon discover they’re not the only ones on the asteroid. As they
try to escape, they are pulled through a wormhole and back to the early 1800s
New Mexico desert where aliens and Apaches may be the least of their problems.

Cassius Flynn is a smuggler. An
outlaw. A scoundrel. Charming, devilishly handsome in a maverick sort of way
and fiendishly clever to boot. He's also the only man Molly McGuire has ever
loved.

Molly'd left him a year ago. Stolen
his airship, broken his heart and made him look like a damn fool. Still, he's
rushed to her rescue, storming into Reaper territory to snatch her out from
under the repulsive bounty hunter who brought her in.

High above the plains, up among the
clouds in the most rarefied Scraper city of them all, a ruthless statesman has
stolen everything Cassius considers important. And without Molly, without her
quick hands, sharp mind and pretty face, he doesn't stand a chance of getting
it back...

Five HOT 1Night Stand stories
by Jessica E. Subject about sexy heroes from other planets.

What do a librarian, a nurse, a director’s assistant, a housekeeper,
and an orphan have in common? They all end up spending an evening with a
gorgeous stranger. But, will one night lead to more, or will the women end up
running away when they learn their sexy suitor comes from another planet? Find
out in these five sensual 1Night Stand stories by sci-fi romance author,
Jessica E. Subject.

Contains: Celestial Seduction, Satin Sheets in Space, Another
Night, Another Planet, His Alien Virgin, and Her Alien Hero

Lieutenant Ramie Ashdyn
is an anomaly, a person whose genetics makes her stronger and smarter than the
average human. She’s pledged her life to protect the Coalition, an alliance of
thirteen planetary systems, but when a top secret operation turns deadly, she’s
charged with treason and the brutal executions of her teammates.

The Coalition needs the
information Ash’s team stole on their last mission, so they send in Commander
Rhys “Rest in Peace” Rykus to get it. He’s the man who’s responsible for
turning Ash into an elite soldier... and he’s a man who isn’t, never was, and
never will be in love with the woman he trained. Or so he tells himself.

Ash wants nothing more
than to clear her name and be the woman her former instructor wants her to be,
but the enemy who killed her teammates did more than frame her for treason and
murder: they telepathically silenced her mind, preventing her from saying
anything that might point to the truth about what happened.

Now Ash is trapped and
set to be executed, the truth dying with her. Unless she can prove her
innocence. But taking that path could destroy the Coalition she’s sworn to
preserve and protect...

Recent SFR/romantic SF discoveries

STARDUST
DREAMS by S.B. Redstone has me intrigued
since it features an octogenarian couple. Now that's the kind of variety I like
to discover in SFR! I've encountered older heroes and heroines before, the most
recent being KS Augustin's RESTORATION, but I do believe
this is the first book I've seen that features an elderly couple. I asked Mr.
Redstone if the story has an HEA and he assured me it does.

Despite
the unusual placement of a period in the first sentence, I may just have to
check this one out. Here's the cover and blurb:

Lance
Forrester is a dreamer. After a celebrated career as an astronaut and engineer,
he and a friend build a secret spacecraft to seek their destinies in the stars.
But his friend dies and Lance is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Desperate not
to succumb to his fate, he convinces an acquaintance, ailing actress Sage Saint
Claire, whom he hasn’t seen since high school, to join him on his quest to
reach an advanced alien civilization which can heal them both.

Unfortunately,
true life is not a Hollywood movie, as much as Sage might want it to be, and
problems abound. Mistakes in the past have turned Sage into a bitter old woman,
and she turns out to be a less-than-perfect traveling companion which no amount
of optimism, youth, or good health can cure. Can these two intrepid
octogenarians-turned-immortals overcome the emotional scars of their pasts and
achieve true happiness, or are they doomed to suffer for their mistakes, no
matter how far from Earth they go?

***

Author D.B. Story wrote to tell me about his new adult
SFR work. He noted that not all of his stories have an HEA, but many do. I
asked him to name three of his titles that would most likely interest SFR
readers and he suggested the following:

I sampled the first few pages of FAR FUTURE FEMBOT and
for what it's worth my impression is the prose has a Golden Age SF style, with
an emphasis on the worldbuilding. Here's the cover and blurb for RUNAWAY KARA:

You never know when or how the right fembot will find
her way into your life, even when you have intentionally moved away from most
of civilization to live a simpler life. When it turns out that she is escaping
a bad situation for herself as well, and that her motivations dovetail nicely
with your own, then magic can happen—but always be prepared for surprises.

Authors are flocking to this small, but tenacious, sub-genre that’s
sometimes seen as the “nerdy little sister” of both Romance and Science
Fiction. The main groups of readers in each of these genres don’t
traditionally have a large intersection. SF fans often don’t want to be
“bothered” with one-on-one relationships in the midst of all the wonder
and strangeness of the vast cosmos, and Romance fans tend to count as a
“distraction” story elements that drift away from the interpersonal
relationships.

The
Queer 101 (via Rooster Tails) is a great resource for not only
being generally better informed about gender, sex, and sexuality, but also for
authors interested in making their stories more diverse.

Now I turn the mike over to you. Got any SFR
news/links to share?

Joyfully yours,

Heather

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About Me: Heather travels the sea of stars for news about science fiction romance. She's also an author in the genre. To get in touch, you can email her, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

About Me

Heather’s debut sci-fi romance novel, Once Upon a Time in Space, features the last living descendant of Christopher Columbus on a desperate quest to find a new world. Standing in his way is Raquel, the deadliest space pirate in the galaxy.